


"Pilot" as if Destiel and Sabriel Were Canon

by Dylan Mischa Letacis (stereotypicalunicorn)



Series: "Supernatural" as if Sabriel and Destiel Were Canon [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel Castiel, Angel Gabriel, Angst, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Characters, Bisexual Dean, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bisexual Sam Winchester, Boys In Love, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester in Love, Character Study, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Destiel - Freeform, Destiel Fanfic, Destiel Subtext, Destiel Subtext- Freeform, Destiel- freeform, Developing Castiel/Dean Winchester, Developing Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Episode 1, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fanfiction, Flashback, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gabriel Loves Sam Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester in Love, Gay, Gay Character, Gay Gabriel, Gay Male Character, Gen, Idiots in Love, Love, M/M, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Multi, Other, POV Sam Winchester, POV Third Person, Pansexual Castiel, Pansexual Character, Plot, Romance, Sabriel - Freeform, Sabriel Subtext, Sabriel Subtext- Freeform, Sabriel fanfic, Sabriel- Freeform, Sam Winchester Loves Gabriel, Sexual Tension, Side Story, Slow Build Castiel/Dean Winchester, Slow Build Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Subtext, Supernatural as if Destiel and Sabriel were real, bisexual brothers, expanding on subtext, pilot, pilot spoilers, season one, transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 20:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7120774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereotypicalunicorn/pseuds/Dylan%20Mischa%20Letacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This work is intended essentially as a book version of the television show "Supernatural". The story is written as if Sabriel and Destiel are canon while staying within the canon universe. This means that the characters have feelings for each other, but this fic will remain compliant with what is canon on the television show, so that what is written in the fic could possibly be canon in the actual "Supernatural" universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Certain moments of this fic may be interpreted romantically whether or whether or not they were intended to be on the television show. This fic will eventually include extra scenes and cute things that we don't get to see on the tv show, so if you have any cute ideas for these or headcanons, whether about the pairings or the characters in general, let me know!
> 
> Because Gabriel and Castiel are not characters until later seasons, the written version of the first seasons will not involve them in order to remain loyal to the television series. However, the Winchesters’ attraction to other men may be mentioned in order to establish their respective sexualities and romantic/sexual preferences.
> 
> Disclaimer: I clearly do not own Supernatural or any of its characters. I am not making any money or material gain by writing this fanwork. No aspect of this work is mine; all plot, characters, settings, and dialogue belongs to those who create the show Supernatural. Please do not copy, translate, or republish this work elsewhere without my consent. Thank you!
> 
> Note: This summary used to say that this work had been temporarily abandoned. This series is no longer abandoned and is still in progress!

Episode 1: “Pilot”

_ Lawrence, Kansas _

_ 22 years ago _

 

_ The limbs of a leafless tree stretch towards the moonlit sky, casting a menacing shadow on the white, green-shuttered house behind it. The light of an upstairs bedroom shines through white lace curtains. The branches creak, one of them shifting, and the movement is visible in its shadow on the house, the dark line crossing the brick chimney. _

 

_ A woman enters a doorway within the house, her shadow outlined in the dark hallway. “Come on, let’s say goodnight to your brother,” she says. She flips a light switch to her right, and the bulb set into the ceiling fan comes to life. A young, beautiful woman is revealed, wearing a short sleeved white nightgown with lace at its fringes. A young boy is in her arms, his blond hair shaggy and his green pajama shirt striped with intersecting lines of white. The woman glances ahead of her, looking towards a baby boy shifting in his cradle, swaddled in a light blue blanket. He is laying on top of a quilt, and a small stuffed bear keeps him company inside the dark, wooden bed. A mobile hangs above the crib. The woman sets the boy in her arms on the ground. Her long blond hair, which matches her son’s, falls over her shoulders.  _

 

_ The young boy approaches the crib. He steps up onto the bar that crosses between the crib’s legs and leans down. “Night, Sam,” he says to the small boy in the crib. He places a light kiss on the dark-haired baby’s forehead. The baby smiles. The woman joins the older boy next to the crib. “Goodnight, love,” she coos lovingly to the child in the bed, stroking his hair. The baby’s smile widens and he squeaks happily. He raises his hands towards the woman as she kisses his forehead. _

 

_ Behind them, a dark-haired man steps into the room, grinning. “Hey, Dean,” he says, greeting the older boy. He wears a green shirt emblazoned with the letters USMC in white.  _

 

_ “Daddy!” the boy exclaims, running across the room towards his father. His hair streams out behind him as he runs. He hops into his father’s arms, and the man scoops him up to his chest. _

_ “Hey, buddy. So what do you think? You think Sammy’s ready to toss around a football yet?” the father asks, looking towards the crib across the room. _

 

_ The boy in his arms shakes his head vigorously. “No, Daddy,” he says, giggling. _

 

_ “No,” the man says in amused agreement, smiling fondly at his son. _

 

_ The woman, presumably the man’s wife, crosses the room. She rubs a hand across her son’s back. “You got him?” she asks the man with a smile. _

 

_ “I got him,” the man replies, looking about the room contentedly. He pulls his son tighter into his body, and the boy wraps his arms around his father’s neck in a hug. The man pats his son’s back, looking towards his other son in the crib. “Sweet dreams, Sam,” he whispers across the room. The boy in the crib looks back at him. The man nods and carries his older son out of the room, flipping the light off on his way out. The baby’s gaze follows him out of the room.  He smiles and lifts his legs, his eyes flickering to the mobile, which is baseball themed. The mobile’s arms hold two baseballs, a baseball bat, and a catching mitt. The mobile begins to spin, and the machine plays a chiming tune. _

 

_ The clock ticks loudly in the background, and the baby watches as a plane carved out of wood swings rapidly between the eleven and twelve o’clock markers of a round clock before the clock stops ticking and the plane halts in between the two hours. A  crescent moon shaped nightlight in the corner of the room casts a warm glow over a shelf cluttered with stuffed animals. The light flickers frantically before going out. _

 

_ The baby’s parents lay in bed, asleep. The baby monitor at their bedside crackles with static under the sound of a baby’s cry, the red bar fluctuating in length to demonstrate the volume of the audio input. Visible in the moonlight, the woman in the white nightgown shifts, her silver ring glinting in the moonlight. She reaches into the lampshade and turns on the lamp. “John,” she murmurs groggily, turning to the other side of the bed. It is empty.  _

 

_ A picture stands next to the baby monitor on the nightstand. It shows the woman standing with her husband. Her hand lays on his chest, and the two stand pressed against one another. They are in front of a car, which stands in front of a row of houses. _

 

_ The woman walks through a darkened doorway, sighing from exhaustion and holding a hand to her temple. She enters the baby’s room to find a man already stood next to his crib. The light in the room is turned off. The man wears a cloak, the collar covering the entire back of his neck and his lower face. The entire room is perfectly still- the man does not move. The mobile is still, and the baby does not cry. “John? Is he hungry?” the woman calls softly to the man. The man’s head turns slowly to the side, his eyelashes hardly visible above his collar. His shadowy back shifts slightly, outlined in the softly lit curtains. He shushes her.  _

 

_ “Okay,” the woman says dismissively, and she turns out of the room with a sigh. The glow of a lamp lights her face, her hand still pressed to the side of her forehead. A flickering light bulb at the end of the hallway catches her attention, and she looks towards it groggily as her hand falls from her head. _

 

_ The woman squints as she approaches the flickering ceiling light, which hangs above a black and white photograph mounted on the wall in a wooden frame. She taps the lampshade, her nails clicking on the ruffled glass. The flickering stops. She hums and her hand drops to her side. She turns back towards her and her husband’s shared bedroom. She pauses and cants her head to the side. There is a constant, muffled sound coming from downstairs. _

 

_ She glides down the steps, the floorboards creaking slightly. She brushes a hand across the railing as she turns onto the landing and a final set of stairs. She reaches the bottom and looks past the wall into a room with a television. The television is on and depicts anguished soldiers lying on their stomachs in a row, guns under their shoulders. A man lies in front of the television in a chair, snoring lightly. _

 

_ The woman stares at the man. She recognizes him. She is sure that he is her husband. “Oh my god,” the woman murmurs in horror, immediately dashing back up the stairs. “Sam!” she gasps into the darkness, more to herself than to the boy in the bedroom upstairs. “Sammy!” she calls as she arrives at the top of the stairs, this time speaking loudly enough to be heard in the bedroom. She stumbles through the hallway, lurching into the doorway and placing her hands on either side of the doorframe to stop herself from entering the room. The room is empty, the cloaked man nowhere to be seen. She barely pauses before jogging into the room, her face a perfect illustration of confusion and fear. She lets out a terrified breath. _

  
  


_ The husband wakes downstairs to the sound of feminine screaming. “Mary?” he yells, turning his head towards the stairway. There is no response. “Mary!” he yells again, leaping from his chair and pounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He barrels through the hallway and into the baby’s bedroom. “Mary,” he says as he twists the doorknob and pushes the door open. The door hits the wall with a bang. He runs into the room. _

 

_ He halts at the room’s center. He doesn’t see his wife. He glances about the room, first left, then right. His son is giggling in his crib. The man steps towards him in relief. The mobile wafts a cheerful melody through the moonlit room.“Hey, Sammy,” the man says fondly, resting his hands in the edge of the crib. The baby looks at him, the moon lighting his grin. His tongue flicks out to lick his lips as he wiggles playfully on the blankets. “Hey,” the man says again with a small smile. The baby looks down at his feet, still smiling. The man reaches a hand into the crib to caress his son’s face. _

 

_ A small dot of red appears on the blanket a few inches to the right of the baby’s head. The man notices it, his smile falling. The man diverts his hand from its path, instead reaching to touch the spot of red. The baby’s smile disappears with his father’s. The baby looks up. Two additional dots of red fall in the same on the back of the man’s hand. The dots are dark, wet, and thick enough that they hold the shape of a circle instead of running down the man’s hand. Another dot falls on the man’s hand, just falling on his third finger, grazing its side before dripping down onto the quilt inside the cradle. The man’s face contorts with confusion, his brow furrowing and his lips parting. He pulls his hand closer to him, turning his head to the side to face the ceiling. His mouth drops open in horror and shock. _

 

_ His wife lays on the ceiling. She is suspended there, her hair forming a golden mane around her head. Her face is pale and her eyebrows are furrowed, her mouth open as if frozen in mid-scream, her eyes wide. Her arms are thrown out to her sides, and her fingertips are pressed into the white ceiling. Her legs are twisted to the left at an uncomfortable angle, her knees bent. The stomach of her nightgown is no longer white but red, stained like a napkin soaked with cherry juice. She breathes erratically, her entire abdomen heaving shallowly with every intake of air. _

 

_ The man falls back onto the carpet, fear, disbelief, and grief painted across his face and blending into the tragic image of a heartbroken lover. His mouth hangs open. “No! Mary!” he cries helplessly. _

 

_ With a growl, flames spurt from his wife’s sides, spreading across the ceiling in a mere second. The man cries out. He stares in horror at his wife’s burning body, her facial expression and position unchanged. The inferno is reflected in the man’s eyes. Flames billow around his wife, eating away at her nightgown and hair. The baby turns his face away, squealing, then bawling, in  fear. _

 

_ The man grits his teeth, pulling himself up and pawing at the crib, grabbing the baby and darting out of the burning bedroom. “Daddy!” his other son exclaims, already standing in the hallway. The man bends and hands him the baby. _

 

_ “Take your brother outside as fast as you can; don’t look back!” the man orders, his eyes filling with tears. “Now, Dean, go!” he yells, and his son runs away, cradling the baby in his arms. The man looks back to the doorway of the bedroom. His son reaches the top of the stairway and begins to jog down the steps. The man runs into the bedroom, shielding his face from the heat and bright light with his hands. “Mary!” he cries, his face falling as his wife nowhere in sight amongst the flames. He cries out, seeing  a lump of flesh protruding from the flames. That is all that remains of the woman in white. The inferno explodes, enveloping her husband.  _

 

_ Her son sprints out of the house. He looks back at the window, the flames illuminating the pane of glass through the intact curtains. “It’s okay, Sammy,” he says to the baby in his arms. The crackling of the fire is audible from outside. He stares up into the window, his lower lip pouted and his eyes wide. _

 

_ His father barrels out of the house, swooping the boy up in his arms and carrying him, still running, away from the house. They make it ten feet before windows on two sides of the house explode, glass streaking through the air with a crash. Fire swirls out from the empty windowpanes. _

 

_ The fire department arrives, red trucks with the words “Lawrence Fire Department” painted on their sides lining the street. Flashing lights reflect in their glossily painted surfaces. A man in a dirty yellow suit and a much cleaner yellow helmet jumps out of the cab of one truck, bracing his hands on the top of the door. He stumbles as his feet hit the ground, then continues over to a control panel, sending the other firefighter there away to take a hose, joining those scattered manning hoses on the front lawn. Water cascades across the grass and shoots into the windows. The flames roar on. _

 

_ The father and his sons sit outside, their faces red in the lights of emergency vehicles. The father’s lips brush across the baby’s forehead. The baby does not smile. Yelling is audible in the background, but none of them bother to listen to it. An ambulance arrives, and two men open the doors. Another, a police officer, stops a couple approaching the burning house. “Hey! Stay back! You have to stay back, come on...” he says, pushing them away from the building. They pass the father and his sons, huddled together on the hood of a black car. The baby writhes, his brother sits in sullen silence. The father looks up from the baby. His eyes are bloodshot and his gaze exhausted. He looks straight forward, and hateful resolve glosses his stare. _

  
  


Stanford University

Present Day

 

“Sam! Get a move on, would ya? We were supposed to be there like fifteen minutes ago,” said Jess, clomping through the doorway in red stiletto heels that popped off a background of white stockings that stopped just above her knee. A red fringe covered the top of her thighs, the white dress the fringe belonged to accented with red stripes and crosses that matched the color of her lips. She pinned her hair away from her face and walked past the dresser, on which is only photo of Sam’s mother was displayed. It depicted her and his dad, John, in front of their house. Before it was burnt to the ground, at least. “Sam! You comin’ or what?”

 

Sam stuck his head through the doorway. “Do I have to?” he asked, although he still smiled at her. 

 

“Yes. It’ll be fun,” the mock nurse said, grinning back.

 

Sam didn’t respond, but stepped through the doorway anyways, breaking eye contact to look upwards, a gesture of giving in. “And where’s your costume?” his girlfriend asked teasingly. Sam let out a breathy laugh on response, shaking his head. Apparently his jean jacket, blue button up, and gray t-shirt weren’t good enough.

 

“You know how I feel about Halloween,” he said firmly. The nurse shrugged.

  
  
  
  
  


The club was filled with the smell of beer, the pulse of some upbeat track Sam didn’t know, and gaggles of college students clustered around tables. Sam sat at one such table, his girlfriend, Jess, dressed as a nurse, and a friend, Luis, dressed as some vividly gory zombie-like creature standing beside him.“So here’s to Sam and his awesome L-SAT victory,” Jess started, raising her glass.

 

“All right, all right, it’s not that big a deal,” Sam stopped her, although he clinked the rim of his glass hers. 

 

“He acts so humble, but he scored a 174,” she returned, smiling.

 

“Mmm!” Luis said, gulping down a shot. “Is that good?”

 

“Scary good,” the nurse answered, bringing her own glass to her lips. She said this as if she could hardly believe his score. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. Sam downed his own shot, his lips pulling back to show his teeth as he tilted back his head and squinted his eyes at the burn of the alcohol.

 

The zombie responded with a laugh. “So, there you go, you’re our first round draft pick,” he said, moving to the other side of Sam. The dim light of the club now shone perfectly on his painted face, the fake congealed blood and bluish speckled skin tone shining in the glow. “You can go to any law school you want!”

 

“Actually, I got an interview here- Monday,” Sam returned, looking down. “If it goes okay, I think I’ve got a shot at a full ride next year,” he said, looking back to Luis.

 

“Hey, it’s gonna go great,” Jess reassured, laying a hand on his, smiling, and raising her eyebrows encouragingly.

 

Sam smiled helplessly back at her in an attempt to hide his nervousness. He glanced away, then looked back at her.. “It better,” he said.

 

“How does it feel to be the golden boy in your family?” Luis asked.

 

“Oh, they don’t know,” said Sam. There was no way he could tell his father and brother about wanting to go to college. 

 

“Oh, no, I would be gloating!” cried the zombie, raising an arm to shoulder level. “Why not?” he continued, lowering the arm.

 

“Cuz we’re not exactly the Bradys,” mused Sam half-heartedly, throwing an arm down on his lap. Best to play it off lightly; this club was no place for a heart-to-heart with his zombie friend.

 

“I’m not exactly the Huxtables. More shots?” the zombie asked joyously.

 

“No,” Sam and Jess said quickly in unison. “No. No!” Sam repeated, turning as Luis headed to the bar anyways. Damn it. He didn’t want to get drunk tonight.

 

“Okay, seriously, I’m proud of you,” said Jess. Sam turned back to face her. “And you’re gonna knock ‘em dead on Monday, and you’re gonna get that full ride. I know it,” she finished reassuringly, smiling at him.

 

Sam grinned gently back at her, but only barely. He shook his head a bit. “What would I do without you?” he asked. There was no way he could have done any of this without her constant reassurance to make up for his less than subpar confidence.

 

“Crash and burn,” Jess sighed, laughing. She leaned in and reached for his neck, and Sam mirrored her actions, meeting her in the middle for a kiss. He placed a hand on her cheek, kissing her thoroughly yet softly.

  
  
  


Sam woke up to a bump from downstairs. He listened for a moment- there it was again, but quieter. He immediately got up, careful not to wake Jess, and stepped down the stairs, floorboards creaking beneath his feet. He mentally ran through his options- whatever it was was probably material; it couldn’t get into their room easily, so the front door was its best option-

 

Or not. 

 

The downstairs window was open, the handle of its shade still swaying from being moved out of the way. The door into the entrance hallway was hanging open as well- the intruder clearly wasn’t clever enough to cover its tracks but was still small enough to fit through the gap between the window and its frame, which was maybe nine inches tall, probably less.

 

Floorboards creaked from behind the half-closed door. Sam peered suspiciously through the opening, and- there. A shadow crossed the doorway rapidly in the reflected moonlight, Sam made out a tall, two-legged form. Could it be human? Perhaps he had rushed to conclusions. Maybe he should have kept a baseball bat handy instead of salt. His father had made more of an impact on him than he liked to admit.

 

Sam stepped quickly yet quietly across the hall to stand pressed against the wall next to the open door. A moment later, the door pushed open, a figure stalking agitatedly into the hall, claiming it with its assertive step. The shadow passed him, and when its back was almost to him, Sam stepped silently forward.

 

Sam threw a hand down on the intruder’s shoulder. The body turned under his hand immediately to face him, their shadowy forms colliding in the hazy room. The next thing Sam felt was his own arm being twisted behind his back, the next thing he heard his own groan. He immediately pulled away, grasping blindly at the arm holding him and spinning, pulling his opponent along with him until he was thrown back into a doorway. He steadied himself. Taking in the shadow rushing towards him, he kicked out, only to be blocked and sent back with a harder kick into a room- he wasn’t concerned with which one it was in the moment. He faked a punch towards the intruder, the moonlight through the window now providing better lighting to view his enemy. His opponent struck out with alternating fists, and Sam blocked every punch. It was if he had fought the intruder before. They predicted each other’s moves effortlessly, creating the perfect stalemate. Sam kicked out again. The moonlit figure jumped back at the last moment. As Sam brought his leg back down, he found himself on the floor, a fresh pain in his neck and a half-lit face staring down at him.

 

“Woah, easy tiger,” the intruder said, grinning down at him. Sam stared back at him, breathing hard. He knew that voice. He knew that face.

 

“Dean?”

 

The other man chuckled infuriatingly, his smile widening obnoxiously.

 

“You scared the crap out of me!”

 

“That’s cuz you’re out of practice,” Dean shot back, critical as always.

 

That was it. He was done. Sam wet his lips and reared back, kicking his brother to the side. Dean just laughed. Sam sat up, placing a restraining hand on his brother’s chest. “Or not,” Dean admitted. “Get off me,” he continued. Sam pulled him up by the collar of his jacket until the brothers stood, facing each other. He was still pissed. Who the hell breaks into their brother’s house in the middle of the night?

 

“Dean, what the hell are you doing here?” he asked angrily.

 

“Well, I was looking for a beer,” Dean replied casually, grabbing Sam by the shoulders. Sam was pretty sure he was joking, but he could never be sure.

 

“Sam?” A light came on, and Sam turned to the door to see Jess standing in the doorway. Great. Dean was here, and now, he was going to meet Sam’s girlfriend. Wonderful.

 

“Jess. Hey,” he started awkwardly, turning to Dean to find him staring at Jess and- geez. Could he even be in the same room with a woman without thinking about-

 

“Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica.” Dean nodded shallowly yet enthusiastically, still grinning.

 

“Wait, your brother, Dean?” Jessica asked, returning the smile.

 

“I love the Smurfs,” Dean said, gesturing to Jess’s nightshirt- off topic as always- God damn it Dean. Surely, even he’d know not to flirt with his brother’s girlfriend. Oh, but no, no he didn’t!

 

“You know, I gotta tell you. You- are completely out of my brother’s league,” Dean said, sauntering closer until he stood just in front of the blond.

 

She nodded dismissively. “Just- let me put something on,” Jess said. All she had on was her Smurfs shirt and a pair of pink striped boyshorts.

 

“No, no, no, I wouldn’t dream of it. Seriously,” Dean insisted as Sam tried to impale his brother’s heart through his spine with his eyes. Dean’s behavior around women bordered on that of a sexual predator, as always.

 

Jess smiled tightly, glancing back to Sam. Dean walked to stand by his brother, although his face and eyes stayed turned to Jess the whole way. “Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here to talk about some private family business, but, uh, nice meeting you,” he said, pointing to her. He was creepy, and now he was even awkward- no wonder he was single.

 

Jess smiled again weakly, and Sam looked back at her, almost saying something before giving up. There was nothing he could do about his brother’s raging hormones and lack of self control, but he could do something about his lack of respect. “No,” he said to Dean decisively. “No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her.” He crossed the room to stand by Jess’ side, placing his hands on his hips.

 

“Okay,” Dean returned, calm as ever. “Um, Dad hasn’t been home in a few days.”

 

“So he’s working overtime on a Miller Time shift? He’ll stumble back in sooner or later,” Sam shot back effortlessly. He knew it was a low blow, but considering the events of the night, he figured he had a free pass.

 

Dean nodded slightly, dropping his chin down to his chest. Sam hoped he was hiding hurt caused by his cruel joke about their father. Dean looked back up. “Dad’s on a hunting trip,” he clarified, looking at Sam, widening his eyes and pursing his lips challengingly. “And he hasn’t been home in a few days,” he repeated.

 

Sam did his best to keep his expression still, though he flooded with mixed emotion at the news. Should he be worried? Would he ever escape the life his father had forced him into? Whatever was going on, he needed the whole story, and he needed to talk to Dean. He wasn’t going to jump wholeheartedly into hunting again because Dad failed to come home again. If anything, he needed to give Dean a piece of his mind. “Jess, excuse us,” he said distractedly, not looking away from his brother.

  
  
  
  


“I mean, come on, you can’t just break in in the middle of the night and expect me to just hit the road with you,” Sam argued, although he followed his brother down the stairs.

 

“You don’t hear me, Sammy. Dad’s missing. I need you to help me find him,” Dean said, gesturing with an arm.

 

“Remember the poltergeist in Amhurst or the Devil’s Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He’s always missing, and he’s always fine,” Sam ranted, doing his best to sound angry while staying quiet.

 

Dean stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned around to face him. “Not for this long. Now, you gonna come with me or not?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling as he stared back at Sam intensely.

 

“I’m not,” Sam stated immediately.

 

“Why not?”   
  


“I swore I was done hunting- for good.”

 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t that bad,” he said, already walking towards the door.

 

“Yeah?” Sam replied, following him through the dark hallway. “When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45.”

 

“Well, what was he supposed to do?”

 

“I was nine years old!” Sam raged. “He was supposed to say ‘don’t be afraid of the dark!’”

 

“Don’t be afraid of the dark? What, are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what’s out there,” Dean cried back. His loyalty to their father would always be revealed in the ridiculous things he said to justify the way they were brought up. Sam did have to concede that he was perfectly justified in being afraid, though.

 

“Yeah, I know, but still, the way we grew up after Mom was killed- and Dad’s obsession to find the thing that killed her, but we still haven’t found the damned thing,” Sam said. He paused. “So we kill everything we can find.”

 

“We save a lot of people doing it, too,” Dean added. Always so self-righteous.

 

Sam huffed. He looked at his brother, whose face was once again darkened in the shadow cast on him by the door they now argued in front of, iron bars between panes of glass blackening stripes of his face. They stood there for a moment, staring at each other Dean’s iconic confident, unfaltering gaze was still present, a product of years of following orders without question until he believed them to be the best course of action. “You think Mom would’ve wanted this for us?” Sam asked, almost whispering, his voice still fueled with anger.

 

Dean slammed a hand on the door, pushing it open without touching the handle and stepped out into the parking garage. Sam followed him. “The weapons training and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors.”

 

“So what are you gonna do? You just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?” Dean asked, sounding exhausted. The pair passed a parked car. Dean turned around and faced Sam just behind it. They stopped walking.

 

“No, not normal,” Sam argued. “Safe.”

 

“And that’s why you ran away,” Dean said, a statement, not a question. He stared at Sam. He let out a breath of disbelief, as if Sam were an idiot for wanting to live without ganking monsters.

 

“I was just going to college,” Sam reasoned. “It was Dad who said if I was going to go I should stay gone,” He tilted his head and gave Dean a small, matter-of-fact smile, then said, “and that’s what I’m doing.”

 

“Yeah, well Dad’s in real trouble right now,” Dean said. “If he’s not dead already. I can feel it,” he finished.

 

Sam stared back at him coolly, trying not to show the battle going on in his mind on his face. Go with Dean and risk everything, or stay back and take the chance that he’s abandoning his family?

 

Dean stared back at him. He bit his lip in frustration, shaking his head slightly. “I can’t do this alone,” he admitted.

 

Sam squinted back at him. “Yes, you can,” he said simply. All Sam had ever been was the underdog, the inconvenience, the one that needed looking after. Dean didn’t need him.

 

Dean looked down. “Yeah,” he started. “Well, I don’t want to,” he spat out reluctantly. He didn’t look back at Sam.

 

Sam still stared at him. He didn’t want to leave Jess and Stanford, but he couldn’t leave Dean to do this alone, could he? Especially when his brother outright admitted he didn’t want to do it alone. It was a rare occasion that Dean admitted much of anything, especially something so personal, something that made him seem so… weak? That wasn’t the word for it. Sam supposed that he could always help Dean find Dad and be back in a few days. He breathed in deeply, holding the air in his lungs, attempting to make up his mind. He sighed a breath out through his nose, tilting his head down towards the ground. He finally looked up at Dean, pressing his lips together. He took a another breath in. 

 

“What was he hunting?”


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a lot more fun to write than the last one, and I think it will be a lot more fun to read, too!

PART TWO

Sam watched as Dean lifted the all-too-familiar fake bottom of the Impala’s trunk, revealing the weapon stock of the mobile zombie apocalypse panic room that was the Impala. “All right,” Dean murmured. “Let’s see where the hell I put that thing,” he said, shuffling through the artillery.

Sam wasn’t particularly concerned about finding ‘that thing’. The weapon could wait, but if he was going to go on some out of the blue trip with Dean, they needed to work out some basic issues.“So, when Dad left, why didn’t you go with him?” Sam asked.

“I was working my own gigs,” Dean replied immediately, as if he had been expecting the question. “Uh, voodoo thing down in New Orleans.” His eyes stayed focused on the knife in his hands.

“Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?” Sam asked incredulously.

Dean set down the blade he had been fidgeting with and turned to give Sam a look. “I’m twenty-six, dude,” he said. The wrinkles in his forehead most certainly reflected the great wisdom acquired by the time one reaches the ripe old age of twenty-six, Sam thought. He stared back at Dean, his doubtful expression unchanging.

“Ah! Here we go,” Dean said, holding up what was not a weapon but a stack of papers. He considered them. “So, Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California.” He passed Sam the paper at the top of the stack. “About a month ago, this guy: they found his car, but he’d vanished- completely M.I.A.”

“So, maybe he was kidnapped,” Sam said, glancing at the paper.

“Yeah, well, here’s another one in April-” Dean set another newspaper clipping down next to Sam. “Another one in December of ‘04,’03, ‘98, ‘92, ten of them over the past twenty years,” Dean said, piling on a newspaper clipping for each date. He scooped up the pile, snatched the clipping he had given Sam , and placed it on top of the pile. “All men, all same five mile stretch of road,” he finished, bracing his hands on the sides of the Impala’s trunk and leaning into its interior. He grabbed a green bag from the compartment and tore it open. “It started happening more and more, so Dad went and took a dig around.” He paused and pursed his lips. “That was about three weeks ago. I haven’t heard from him since, which is bad enough.” He took his phone from the trunk of the car. “Then, I get this voicemail yesterday.” He bit his bottom lip and pressed a button on the phone- hard. The phone crackled on, and the voice of the Sam and Dean’s father came through the tiny speaker:

Dean, something is starting to happen. I think it’s- I need to try- figure out what’s going- it may be- call you. Be very careful, Dean. We’re all in danger.

The audio was riddled with a static-like noise, and at some points it completely overpowered the audio. “You know there’s EVP on that?” Sam asked.

“Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like ridin’ a bike, isn’t it?” Dean joked half-heartedly. Sam just shook his head. “All right. I slowed the message down and ran it through a Goldwave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got.” Dean clicked a button on the phone.

The phone gurgled slightly, producing a sound akin to a heart beating in a pool of sewage. Then, a whispering, feminine voice came through: “I can never go home…” 

Dean stopped the message and looked at Sam pointedly. Sam stared at the phone. “Never go home,” Sam repeated. 

Dean dropped the phone into the trunk and slammed the door shut. “You know, in almost two years, I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing,” he said, leaning against the back of the car. Sam looked away. He couldn’t deny that Dad was in trouble, but…

Sam sighed. He looked back at Dean. “Alright. I’ll go,” he conceded. It wouldn’t hurt to help Dean find Dad and then go back to Stanford in time for his interview. “I’ll help you find him, but I have to be back first thing Monday.” He paused. He needed to let Jess know he was leaving and pack his bags yet again. He hadn’t done that in two years. “Just wait here,” he said, turning back to the apartment.

“What’s first thing Monday?” Dean asked.

Sam stopped to look at him. He hesitated. “I have an interview,” he forced out. God, that sounded so pathetic.

“What, a job interview? Skip it,” Dean said. Sam still couldn’t believe how he suggested he skip out on such a thing like it was nothing. He looked at Dean in disbelief.

“It’s a law school interview, and it’s my whole future on a plate,” he shot back, carefully controlling his voice.

“Law school,” Dean echoed.

Sam didn’t want to talk about school with Dean, ever. “So we got a deal or not?” he asked. Dean just pursed his lips.

 

Sam stuffed a silver scythe into his bag just as Jess entered the room. “Wait, you’re taking off?” she asked. Sam opened his mouth, but Jess continued before he could speak. “Is this about your dad? Is he alright?” 

“Yeah, you know, just a little family drama,” Sam said as casually as possible. He walked over to the dresser. 

“Your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip,” Jess pointed out. Sam fumbled for a response. Maybe Dean was right when he’d said Sam was out of practice- he had once been an all-star liar.

“Uh, yeah, he’s just deer hunting up at the cabin,” Sam lied. His Dad didn’t have a house, much less a cabin. “He’s probably got Jim, Jack, and José along with him. I’m just gonna go bring him back,” he finished, not looking at Jess.

“What about the interview?”

“I’ll make the interview,” Sam faked a smile and a small laugh. He lifted his bag and walked to the other side of the bed, setting it back down on top of the comforter. “This is only for a couple days.”

“Sam, I mean, please!” Jess exclaimed. Sam wilted internally. He turned around, trying to keep his smile. “Please, just- stop for a second,” she said. “You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“Hey, everything’s gonna be okay,” Sam confirmed, smiling and searching her eyes for any hurt or worry. “I promise.” He swept forward and kissed her cheek, then turned and half- jogged out of the room.

“At least tell me where you’re going!” Jess called after him. Sam walked faster.

 

“Hey! You want breakfast?” Dean asked as he returned to the car, raising his eyebrows and shaking the containers in his hands as if to tempt Sam. They were parked outside of some run-down cross between a convenience store and an automobile repair shop somewhere in the midwest, the first place they had come across on their search for gas.

“No, thanks,” Sam called back in disgust and turned back to the box of cassette tapes he had been studying. “So, how’d you pay for that stuff?” he yelled back at Dean, already knowing the answer. “You and Dad still running credit card scams?”

Dean removed the gas nozzle from the car and returned it to its spot in the pump. “Yeah, well, hunting ain’t exactly a pro-ball career,” he replied. Sam glanced at him, almost arguing with him on the morals of credit card scams, but then deciding it would be useless and looking back down at the box in his hands. “Besides, all we do is apply. It’s not our fault they send us a card.”

“Yeah, and what names did you write on the application this time?” Sam asked mockingly. He closed his car door.

“Uh, Burt Aframian,” Dean answered, sliding into the driver’s seat and setting down his food. “And his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal,” he added.

Sam smiled despite his disapproval, shaking his head. The whole deal with the credit cards was ridiculous, even after growing up with it. “That sounds about right.” He shuffled through the box in his lap. “I swear, man, you gotta update your cassette tape collection,” he said.

“Why?” Dean asked defensively.

“Well, for one, they’re cassette tapes, and two-” he pulled out a tape from the box. “Black Sabbath? Motor Head? Metallica?” he said, his disbelief growing with the increasingly outdated albums. Dean continued to look confounded, then raised his eyebrows and pulled the Metallica tape out of Sam’s hand. “They’re the greatest hits of mullet rock,” Sam said pointedly.

“Yup,” Dean said distractedly. He slipped the tape into the player.and threw the cassette case back into the box in Sam’s lap. “House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.” Dean immediately turned the key in the ignition, and the motor growled to life.

“You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve year old. It’s Sam, okay?” Sam said over the combined racket of the engine and the music.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you,” Dean pretended to apologize. He gestured to his ear. “The music’s too loud.” He looked at Sam and grinned triumphantly. Sam sighed and looked out the window. The car pulled out onto the highway.

 

Sam glanced out the car window to see a “Jericho- 7” sign as he hung up on the phone. “Alright, so there’s no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue, so that’s something, I guess.” As long as Dad wasn’t in critical condition or worse, he wouldn’t allow himself to get worked up. On second thought, perhaps his father’s whereabouts being unknown was worse. He decided not to follow that train of thought.

Sam looked back out the windshield. “Check it out,” Dean said. There seemed to be some sort of bridge closing. A cluster of police cars were parked in front of a brown, metal truss bridge. Sam craned his neck to peer around the cars but to no avail. 

Dean pulled the Impala over to the side of the road. He took one last look outside, then decisively opened the glove box and grabbed a wooden container- one Sam had seen enough times before to recognize on sight. It was his father’s collection of fake badges and IDs. Dean shuffled through the box and selected a pair of cards. Sam stared at him, his mouth agape. A bridge was closed- so what? Dean had no reason to investigate it. He had never been one to take proper precautions when it came to his family’s more fraudulent activities, though, Sam supposed. Dean noticed him staring and gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Let’s go,” he said and practically launched himself out of the car. Sam huffed, considered arguing, then decided against it and climbed out of the car, although he did so much less enthusiastically than Dean.

They approached the police cars. A man in a suit and hat, probably a sheriff- no, he didn’t have the professional demeanor for that- a deputy- leaned over the rail of the bridge and yelled something down to two men on the riverside. He turned away after getting a short response that Sam couldn’t hear. They reached the police cars, a man leaning inside one of the cruisers reporting to the deputy. “No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints- spotless. It’s almost too clean.” Sam had to admit to himself that Dean had most likely been right- this was probably an investigation related to the disappearances.

“So this kid, Troy. He’s dating your daughter, isn’t he?” the deputy asked the man inside the car. Sam couldn’t help but think of Jess.

“Yeah.”

“How’s Amy doing?”

“She’s putting up ‘Missing’ posters downtown.”

The conversation came to a rest and Dean took full advantage, strutting closer to the men. “You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn’t you?” he asked.

The deputy turned to him, startled. “And who are you?” he asked suspiciously.

Dean flipped a badge open and held it up in one swift motion. “Federal marshals,” he said. Sam did his best to smile at the deputy.

“You two are a little young for marshals, aren’t you?”

Dean dismissed the interrogation with an obviously rehearsed response.“Ha! Thanks, that’s awfully kind of you.” He walked casually past the deputy. “You did have another one just like this, correct?”

The deputy glanced away. “Yeah, that’s right. About a mile up the road. There’ve been others before that,” he said cautiously.

“So, this victim. You knew him,” Sam said.

The deputy nodded. “Town like this, everybody knows everybody.”

“Any connection between the victims- besides that they’re all men?” Dean asked.

“No, not so far as we can tell,” the deputy said, squinting into the setting sun.

“So, what’s the theory?” Sam asked.

“Honestly? We don’t know,” the deputy admitted. Sam looked back at him in surprise. “Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?”

“Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I’d expect outta you guys,” Dean said cheerfully. Goddamnit. What was he thinking? Sam stomped on Dean’s foot, smiling apologetically at the deputy. Dean’s smile disappeared. The deputy looked back at them, seeming slightly offended and a bit confused. 

“Thank you for your time,” Sam said quickly, giving Dean a pointed look, then walking off. “Gentlemen,” he nodded in the direction of the man crouched by the car. He bit the inside of his cheek, shaking his head until something hit the back of his skull- Dean. “Ow! What was that for?” Sam half-whispered, pressing closer to his brother angrily. 

“Why’d you have to step on my foot?”

“Why’d you have to talk to police like that?”

“Come on! They don’t really know what’s goin’ on.” Dean slid in front of him and faced him, holding his arms out and effectively blocking Sam’s path. “We’re all alone on this.” A pair of cruisers pulled up, and three men clambered out of the leather seats to stand a few feet behind Dean. “I mean, if we’re gonna find Dad, we’ve gotta get to the bottom of this thing ourselves.” They really needed to stop talking like this in public.

Sam cleared his throat, nodding towards the men. Dean turned around to face them. One was dressed in a tan and brown uniform, which had a few badges clipped to it. He was accompanied by two men in matching black and white suits. This was the sheriff, then.

“Can I help you boys?” the sheriff asked. 

“No, sir. We were just leaving,” Dean responded immediately. The two men in black and white shouldered past them. “Agent Mulder. Agent Scully,” Dean acknowledged each of them by name, and Sam wasn’t sure if he was reading off of badges that he himself hadn’t managed to spot or if he was just guessing. Sam turned to see “FBI” emblazoned on the back of each of their jackets in yellow. His skills with identifying officials were rustier than he thought. He followed Dean past the sheriff without a word. He felt a pair of eyes follow them as they left.

 

“I think we should go look for that girl- Amy,” Dean said suddenly.

Sam turned from the car window to look at him. “Who?”

“The girl, Amy,” Dean said. “The deputy said somethin’ about her being the vic’s girlfriend. The other guy mentioned something about her handing out ‘Missing’ posters downtown. Probably has some decent information. I wouldn’t doubt that she’d be eager to give us info on just about anything we ask her for, too. You know how girls are once they get infatuated.”

Sam looked at him. The way his brother thought about women would never fail to astonish him. “Fine,” he consented. “But-” he fixed Dean with a look. “No hitting on her. If you hit on her, we’re leaving.”

Dean rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Aw, come on, man! What do you think the vic was, sixteen? I’m not gonna come on to a girl a decade younger than me.”

Sam laughed. “You came on to my girlfriend just last night.” He gulped at the thought of Jess. “I wouldn’t put it past you to do the same to a minor,” he finished half-heartedly.

 

Sam and Dean walked down the street in search of Amy. “I’ll bet you that’s her,” Dean said, nodding to a teenage girl holding a stack of white papers.

“Yeah.”

“You must be Amy,” Dean said as they reached the girl with the papers.

“Yeah,” she replied calmly. She was a brunette with thick eyeliner and an eyebrow piercing that should have been intimidating, but she seemed friendly enough.

“Yeah, Troy told us about you. We’re his uncles. I’m Dean. This is Sammy.”

“He never mentioned you to me.” Amy began to walk down the road, and Dean walked beside her. Sam followed.

Dean laughed a little. “Well, that’s Troy, I guess. We’re not around much. We’re up in Modesto.”

“So we’re looking for him, too,” Sam cut in before Dean dug them into too deep a hole of lies. “And we’re kinda asking around.” He passed in front of Dean to stand in Amy’s path, backing the group into a shop entrance so they weren’t overheard. He glanced at Amy, then stopped. Another girl had joined them, her dark lipstick and eyeliner similar to Amy’s.

“Hey, are you okay?” the new arrival asked, placing a hand on Amy’s arm.

“Yeah,” Amy responded quietly.

“You mind if we ask you a couple questions?” Sam asked the girls.

 

Sam glanced around the empty diner, then at Amy and her friend, Rachel, from across the table. “Do you know what exactly happened that night?”

Amy tilted her head to the side.“I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and he never did.”

“He didn’t say anything strange or out of the ordinary?” Sam asked.

“No, nothing I can remember,” she said, distraught. She looked over to Rachel, who smiled at her sympathetically.

“Here’s the deal, ladies,” Dean said suddenly. “The way Troy disappeared… something’s not right.” Sam stared at his coffee. “So, if you’ve heard anything…” He gestured vaguely with his hand. The two girls shared a glance. Amy’s hand fidgeted on her glass of Diet Coke. “What is it?” Dean asked.

Rachel shrugged awkwardly. “Well, it’s just… with all these guys going missing, people talk.”

“What do they talk about?” Sam and Dean said in unison. Sam typically would have been annoyed by this, but he couldn’t bother in the moment.

The two girls looked at each other again. Rachel placed her hands on the table. “It’s kind of this local legend,” she said, and kept her hands busy by interlacing her fingers. “This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like, decades ago.” Sam nodded. “Well, supposedly, she’s still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up, well, they disappear forever.” Sam swallowed and looked at Dean.

 

Sam watched the screen of the library desktop computer over Dean’s shoulder. Dean searched for “Female Murder Hitchhiking”. The computer came up with nothing. Dean typed “Female Murder Centennial Highway”. Again, the computer brought up no files. “Let me try,” Sam said, reaching for the keyboard.

“I got it,” Dean said loudly- too loudly for a library, at least, and slapped his hand away.

Sam shoved Dean’s roller chair and scooted his own so he could reach the keyboard.

“Dude!” Dean hit Sam on the shoulder. “You’re such a control freak.”

Sam ignored him. “So, angry spirits are born out of violent deaths, right?” he said.

“Yeah,” Dean responded monotonically.

“Maybe it’s not murder,” Sam realized out loud. He typed “Female Suicide Centennial Highway.” Just as he’d thought, the computer produced a file. Sam nodded in self-congratulation. He scanned the article. “This was 1981. Constance Welch, 24 years old, jumps of Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river.”

“Say why she did it?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Sam furrowed his brow, reading the line again.

“What?”

“An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren’t breathing. Both die.”

Dean hummed in interest.

“‘Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn’t just couldn’t bear it,’ said husband Joseph Welch,” Sam read from the caption of a photo of the woman’s husband.

“That bridge look familiar to you?” Dean asked rhetorically. He pointed to a black and white photograph of the bridge they had visited just that day.

 

Sam followed Dean to the center of the bridge. Dean stopped and rested his hands on the railing. “So, this is where Constance took the swan dive,” he said, as if he were instead facing a pretty girl a friend had told him about.

Sam stared at the water, trying not to think about the suicide. “So, you think Dad would’ve been here?” he said, glancing at Dean.

Dean nodded. “Well, he’s chasin’ the same story, and we’re chasin’ him.” He turned and walked farther down the bridge, drifting towards the center of the road.

“Okay, so now what?” Sam asked as he followed Dean.

“Now we keep digging ‘til we find him. Might take a while,” Dean replied impatiently.

“Dean, I told you. I’ve gotta get back by-” Dean turned around. “Monday,” he finished with Sam. 

“Right, the interview,” he said, pointing to Sam.

“Yeah.”

“Ah, I forgot.” Sam had thought as much. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” Dean asked.

San was taken aback by his brother’s sudden interest in his personal life.

“You think you’re just gonna become some lawyer?” Ah, here it came. The inevitable lecture. “Marry your girl?”

“Maybe. Why not?” Sam asked.

“Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you’ve done?”

Sam sighed. “No, and she’s not ever going to know,” he said. He had made his mind up about that a long time ago.

Dean gave him a fake, knowing smile. “Well, that’s healthy,” he said sarcastically. “You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner or later, you’re gonna have to face up to who you really are.”

“Who’s that?” Sam asked.

“You’re one of us!” Dean said, lifting his arms out to the sides dramatically.

“No, I’m not like you. This is not going to be my life,” Sam insisted, hurrying to intercept Dean and stand in his way.

“You have a responsibility-” 

“To Dad and his crusade? If it weren’t for pictures, I wouldn’t even know what Mom looks like. What difference would it make?” Dean stared back at him, his Adam’s Apple working in his throat. “Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom’s gone, and she isn’t coming back,.”

Dean launched forward, shoving Sam against a pillar. He pinned him there with his forearms against Sam’s chest and his hands fisted in his coat collar. He paused and glared into Sam’s eyes. Sam stared back at him.

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Dean almost whispered. He stared at Sam for another moment, then released him abruptly. He turned away. Sam ran a hand down his face. “Sam,” Dean said urgently. Sam glanced back at Dean, and-

There was a woman- a woman in a white dress, standing barefoot on the railing on the opposite side of the bridge. Her face was turned towards them, her face shrouded in shadows created by her thick brown hair.

Sam stepped away from the railing to stand beside Dean. Together, they watched the woman study the water.

The woman looked back at them, and half of her face was lit by the moon. There was no doubt- this was Constance Welch. She watched them, and without turning her head, she let herself fall forward into the river.

Sam leapt forward, letting out a noise of surprise, and rushed to the side of the bridge.

“Where’d she go?” Dean asked from beside him.

“I don’t know,” Sam muttered, surveying the water.

A noise came from behind them- the sound of a car revving up. Sam whipped around and was met with lights flashing in his eyes. He squinted to see the Impala, its headlights on and its motor running. Dean walked closer to it. “What the-”

“Who’s driving your car?” Sam wondered out loud.

Dean reached into his jacket pocket and held up his car keys. Sam looked at them.

He looked back to the car at the sound of squealing tires and saw the Impala lurch forward and speed towards them. Sam froze for a moment, then he turned and started running. “Dean? Go! Go!” he yelled over the engine. He flipped his head around- there was maybe 10 feet between him and the car. He ran faster. He looked back again- 5, maybe 6 feet. There was no way he could outrun a car. In a moment of adrenaline, he jumped, planted his hands on the bridge’s railing, and launched himself over the side.

 

Sam heaved himself up onto the bridge, breathing heavily, and looked out over the water for his brother. “Dean!” he yelled as he spotted the older man crawling out of the water. “Hey! Are you alright?” 

Dean held up an ‘okay’ hand sign and collapsed onto his back. His face was caked with mud, and Sam managed not to laugh at the sight. “I’m super,” Dean called back. Sam laughed now, whether it was from the ridiculous situation they were in or out of joy at not being killed by his own brother’s car, he would never know. He pushed himself up to stand on the bridge once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what'd you think of this chapter? Also, three VERY important issues.
> 
> 1\. I took out a scene from the show. In the show, we watch Constance murder Troy. I would've written the scene in the style of a flashback, and I didn't feel like it would fit with the chapter. I want to focus on writing from the Winchesters' points of view. What do y'all think? Should I have included that scene?
> 
> 2\. I added a scene! (Pssst- I challenge you all to guess which scene it was in the comments and let me know what you think of it!)
> 
> 3\. I still need all of your opinions on whether or not I should skip around with this series- see the overall work notes below for my plan for that. Should I write all of the episodes, or just the ones where Gabriel and Castiel have roles?
> 
> 4\. Don't forget to send me any ideas or headcanons for scenes you'd like me to add to episodes!


	3. Part Three

Dean slammed the hood of the Impala.

 

“Your car all right?” Sam asked.

 

“Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now. That Constance chick,” Dean said. “What a bitch!” he hollered into the mist.

 

“Well, she doesn’t want us digging around. That’s for sure,” Sam said. Dean let out a breath, slouching against the hood of the car. Sam sat next to him. “So, where’s the job go from here, genius?”

 

Dean let out another long breath, throwing his hands up in the air. He was still covered in muck from the river. Sam stifled a giggle as Dean shook his hands again in an attempt to throw off the mud stuck to his palms. Sam sniffed. Jeez, something smelled bad. Ah, the mud- Dean. Sam turned to his brother. “You smell like a toilet,” he said. Dean stared straight ahead before dropping his chin to his chest in misery.

  
  
  


 

“Aw, no!” Dean moaned, tossing his hands up. “No! Now mud’s gonna get all over the seat!” He trailed a hand across the door handle. “I’m gonna ruin her newly upholstered leather seats…” he murmured to himself in realization. Sam looked at him for another second, then ducked into his own seat. “Goddammit!” He heard his brother yell from outside. He threw his head back and grinned.

 

Finally, Dean sat gingerly into his own seat, turned the key in the ignition, and slapped two wet hands on the steering wheel.

 

“Dean-” Sam started.

 

“Don’t wanna talk about it.”

 

“Come on, Dean-”

 

“I  _ don’t wanna talk about it _ .”

 

Sam surrendered and sat in silence.

 

“Remember when Dad told us about that guardian angel stuff Mom used to say all the time?”

 

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

 

“Yeah, well, it’s bullshit.”

 

Sam laughed again.

  
  
  
  


 

Dean slapped the Hector Aframian credit card down onto the ledger. “One room, please.” He was still covered in muck. Sam decided that perhaps he should’ve gotten the room while Dean waited in the car. Too late for that, though. He settled for looking anywhere but at the man behind the counter and forcing a tight-lipped smile.

 

“You guys havin’ a reunion or somethin’?” the man behind the counter asked, looking at the card. He was wearing a shirt that looked traditional for somewhere in Southeast Asia- maybe India. Sam and Dean answered his question with looks of confusion.

 

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

 

“I had another guy- Burt Aframian. He came in and bought out a room for the whole month,” the man behind the counter answered.

 

Sam swallowed and looked at Dean. Dad had been there.

  
  
  


 

Sam finally turned the knob to his father’s room and swung the door open, pushing himself from his kneeling position to stand and enter the room. He glanced around- whoa. Dad really had a setup in there. Sam glanced back outside and saw Dean still standing in the exterior corridor, his back to the doorway, staring at nothing. Sam leaned out the doorway, grabbed his collar, and heaved him into the room, slamming the door behind them. Dean grunted, but Sam was too busy staring to hear him.

 

The wall was covered in paper- newspaper clippings, maps, photos, pages of books- you name any source of information that comes on paper, it was on that wall. 

 

Dean picked up a half-eaten cheeseburger from the bedside table, flicking the lamp on. Sam stepped over a line of salt. Dean sniffed the burger and recoiled with a sigh of disgust. “I don’t think he’s been here for a couple days, at least.”

 

Sam crouched and dipped his hand into the pile of salt. His eye caught sight of a rock. It resembled an eye- black inside with a bright outer ring- cat’s eye shells. “Salt, cat’s eye shells- he was worried,” Sam said, standing back up. “He was trying to keep something from coming in.”

 

Dean lingered on the wall, taking in the scribbled notes and pocket-protected photographs. “What have you got here?” Sam asked. He joined his brother next to the wall.

 

“Centennial Highway victims,” Dean responded casually. Sam nodded, examining the miniature biographies of each. William Durrell, Scott Nifong, and a litany of other men at a wide range of ages, gone missing over a period of decades- no obvious connection. Sam turned and approached the opposite wall. Dean spoke. “I don’t get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There’s always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?” Sam half-heard Dean’s ramblings. The opposite wall held a number of curious images- drawings of old methods of torture, newspaper clippings with messy red underlining, pictures labeled with Latin phrases, entire sections dedicated to holding images and notes on devils, demons, sirens, witches, and the possessed. Finally, Sam found a tiny scrap of paper taped to the wall labeled with “Woman in White” in black marker. Below it was the article he and Dean had found on their computer search the other day. He switched on a lamp. The section of wall held numerous other articles and featured an artist’s depiction of a woman in white dress who was probably from the 1800s, judging by the style of the art and clothing. Her hair was wild, and she was standing expectantly in the center of a road.

 

“Dad figured it out,” Sam murmured. Dean turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”

 

“He found the same article we did. Constance Welch- she’s a woman in white.”

 

Dean turned back to the photographs. “You sly dogs,” he muttered to the pictures. “All right, so if we’re dealing with a woman in white, Dad would’ve found the corpse and destroyed it.”

 

“She might have another weakness,” Sam said, deep in thought.

 

“Well, Dad would want to make sure,” Dean said. He joined Sam by the section of wall dedicated to the woman in white. “He’d dig her up. Does it say where she’s buried?” he asked, nodding to the article.

 

“No, not that I can tell,” Sam replied. “If I were Dad, though, I’d go ask her husband- if he’s still alive.” He moved to examine the maps on the other wall. Maybe they held some information about where Dad had gone...

 

“Hm. All right, why don’t you, uh, see if you can find an address. I’m gonna get cleaned up,” Dean said. His body was still caked with dried mud.

 

Sam stepped towards him. “Hey, Dean?” Dean turned around. “What I said earlier about Mom and Dad- I’m sorry,” Sam said, holding his arms out apologetically.

 

Dean put up a hand to stop him. “No chick flick moments.”

 

Sam looked at him for a moment, let out a breathy laugh and nodded. “All right… Jerk.”

 

Dean put his hand down. “Bitch.” He turned and walked into the bathroom. Sam couldn’t help but laugh. His smile fell as he noticed a photo with its edge tucked into the frame of the mirror. He tugged it out- it showed him, Dean, and Dad sat on the hood of the Impala. Dean’s hair was ridiculously long, down to his shoulders. The photo must have been taken during the phase he had when he was seven during which he wanted his hair to be “long and flowy”. They were all grinning- except for little Sam, who couldn’t have been older than four and looked confused. Sam’s lip quirked upwards. He didn’t remember days like that, but somehow, he still missed them.

  
  
  


 

Sam picked up his phone. He had a message from Jess. He hit the play button and sat on the edge of the bed.

 

“Hey, it’s me. It’s about 10:20 Saturday night-”

 

Dean walked out of the bathroom. “Hey, man,” he said, flinging on a flannel. “I’m starvin’. I’m gonna grab a little something to eat at the diner down the street. You want anything?”

 

“No,” Sam said, pressing the phone closer to his ear.

 

“Aframian’s buying,” Dean said with a grin.

 

“Mm-mm,” Sam said, shaking his head. He really wasn’t hungry. He tried to catch the remainder of the message.

 

“So call soon, okay? I love you,” Jess’ voice said.

 

As soon as the message finished, Sam’s phone beeped. Dean was calling him. Sam picked up the phone. “What?” he said.

 

“Dude, 5-0, take off,” Dean said.

 

Sam stood immediately. “What about you?”

 

“Uh, they kinda spotted me. Go find Dad.” The line beeped again.

 

Sam set down his phone on the bed and slipped over to the window, peeking out from behind the curtains. He saw Dean facing the two men from the bridge the other day- the deputy and some other officer. The deputy nodded and his partner began to head towards Sam’s motel room. Sam ducked back behind the curtain, breathing silently. He strained his ears. He could just barely hear what was happening outside- thank God for cheap motel windows.

 

“So, fake US Marshal, fake credit cards… you got anything that’s real?” he heard someone- he thought it was the deputy- ask.

 

A pause. “My boobs,” someone said. That was most definitely Dean. Sam sighed silently and pinched the bridge of his nose. Even without focusing, he heard a bang from outside. Probably Dean being slammed into a car and handcuffed.

  
  
  


 

Sam knocked on the door. A somewhat elderly man with saggy skin and a baseball cap swung the door open immediately. “Hi, uh, are you Joseph Welch?” Sam asked, looking down at him.

 

“Yeah,” the other man said, nodding awkwardly.

 

“Oh, um, nice to meet you, sir. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”

  
  
  


 

Mr. Welch glanced at the photo of Sam, Dean, and Dad as Sam walked beside him. “Yeah- he was older, but that’s him. He came by three or four days ago,” he said, handing the photo back to Sam. They were days behind. They couldn’t let the trail go cold. “Said he was a reporter,” Mr. Welch continued. They walked past a shed.

 

“That’s right. We’re working on a story together.” 

 

“Well, I don’t know what the hell kind o’ story you’re workin’ on. The questions he asked me…”   
  


“About your wife, Constance?”

 

“He asked me where she was buried!”

 

Sam nodded. “And- where is that, again?”

 

The other man stared at him. “What, I gotta go through this twice?”

 

Sam gestured vaguely. “It’s fact checking.” He paused. “If you don’t mind.”

 

Mr. Welch took a breath. “In a plot behind my old place over in Breckenridge.”

 

“And why did you move?” Sam asked.

 

“I’m not gonna live in the house where my children died.”

 

Sam stepped in front of him and turned around. “Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?”

 

“No way. Constance, she was the love of my life.” Joseph smiled sadly. “Prettiest woman I ever known.”

 

“So you had a happy marriage?”

 

Joseph’s smile fell a bit. “Definitely,” he said after a moment. Suspicious.

 

“Well, that should do it. Thanks for your time.” Sam turned to walk back to the Impala. He grabbed the keys from his pocket. He hesitated, looked up, and licked his lips. Maybe…

 

“Mr. Welch, you ever hear of a woman in white?” he yelled to the retreating man.

 

Mr. Welch turned around. “A what?”

 

“A woman in white- or, sometimes, a weeping woman?” The shorter man simply stared at him. “It’s a ghost story. Well, it’s more of a phenomenon, really, um…” Sam slipped his keys back into his jacket pocket and approached Mr. Welch. “They’re spirits. They’ve been sighted for hundreds of years- dozens of places in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women, you understand, but all share the same story,” Sam said, stopping in front of the other man.

 

Mr. Welch shook his head slightly. “What?’ he repeated. “Boy, I don’t care much for nonsense.” He turned to walk back to the house.

 

“You see, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them.” Sam said. Mr. Welch stopped walking. “And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children.” The man in the baseball cap turned around slowly “Then, once they realized what they had done, they took their  _ own _ lives, so now their spirits are cursed- walking back roads, waterways- and if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him, and that man is never seen again.”

 

Mr. Welch’s lip trembled. “You think- you think that has something to do with Constance, you smartass?” he said, pausing hesitantly every few words.

 

“You tell me,” Sam said gently.

 

Mr. Welch shook his head, his jaw clenched tightly. “I mean, maybe- maybe I made some mistakes, but no matter what I did… Constance, she never would’ve killed her own children. Now you get the hell outta here and you don’t come back,” he said, his neck tensing and his voice trembling with contained anger. He pressed his shaking lips together and stared into Sam’s eyes. After a few moments, he turned and clomped away. Sam watched him. He let a breath out through his nose.

  
  
  


 

Sam was jolted from his half- stupor by the ringing of his cell phone. He took a hand off the steering wheel to reach into his pocket and answer it. He knew he shouldn’t answer his phone while he was driving, but hunting didn’t really require one to adhere to the rules.

 

“Fake 911 phone call Sammy. I dunno; that’s pretty illegal,” Dean said immediately on the other line. So he  _had_ managed to escape from wherever they had him while the sheriff went out to handle the imaginary gunshots.

 

Sam grinned. “You’re welcome.”

 

“Listen, we gotta talk.”

 

“Tell me about it, so the husband  _ was _ unfaithful. We  _ are _ dealing with a woman in white, and she’s buried behind her old house, so that should have been Dad’s next stop-”

 

“Sammy, would you shut up for a second?”

 

Sam kept talking. “I just can’t figure out why he hasn’t destroyed the corpse yet.”

 

“Well, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. He’s gone. Dad left Jericho.”

 

Sam stopped. “What? How do you know?”

 

“I’ve got his journal.”

 

_ What?  _ “He doesn’t go anywhere without that thing.”

 

“Yeah, well he did this time.”

 

So Dad must have written where he was going in the journal...“What’s it say?”

 

“Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap- when he wants to let us know where he’s goin’?”

 

Of course. “The coordinates. Where to?”

 

“I’m not sure yet.”

 

Sam shook his head let his gaze trail over to the side of the road. Why would Dad skip out in the middle of a hunt? “Dean, what the hell is goin’ on?” He looked back to the center of the road and dropped his phone. He slammed on his brakes, ducked down, and slapped his hand back onto the steering wheel. Still, he sped right through the woman standing in the middle of the road. He stopped about fifteen feet later. He looked out the windshield, breathing heavily.

  
“Take me home.” Sam jumped. There was a voice, flowing and ethereal, that seemed to come from all directions. He looked into the mirror, and there she was, in the back seat- Constance Welch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeeek! I'm sorry that this is a shorter chapter. I thought this would end up to be four chapters, but I think I could have made it three. I'm just going to have the last couple chapters be a bit shorter. 
> 
> I've decided that I will skip around in this fic, so I won't write any more episodes in season one after this. I believe the next episode I'll be writing is "Tall Tales" from season two!


	4. Part Four

Sam stared into the mirror and tried to breath.

 

“Take me home,” Constance said again, more forcefully, glaring at the back of his head.

 

Sam breathed heavily through his nose. “No,” he said firmly. Constance’s lip dropped into a pout. Her eyes flew to the mirror to make contact with Sam’s. The locks on the doors dropped down into locked position. Sam stared at the lock on his door, then grabbed it, pulling at it with both hands. The lock didn’t budge. The accelerator pushed down without being touched and the steering wheel turned to the right. The car sped off with Sam and Constance inside it. Sam pounded at the door, breathing deliberately through his nose. The woman in the back seat flickered for a moment, like the image on a television experiencing a slight interference. She smiled cruelly.

 

The car squealed onto the grass in front of an ancient home. The house was missing doors, had cracked windows. Constance stared at the house longingly. “Don’t do this,” Sam tried. The woman shook her head and flickered again. “I can never go home,” she said, and she seemed so human that Sam almost would have believed that she was. Sam stared at the ramshackle house, then at the woman’s expression. “You’re scared to go home,” he realized. He pulled a deep breath into his lungs, then turned and looked into the back seat. Constance had disappeared.

 

He jostled the lock but it was still in place. He turned to try the other door, but- oh. Constance stared directly into his eyes from the passenger seat. She jolted into his lap, the movement somehow supernaturally smooth, and pushed him back against the seat. Sam cried out in pain. 

 

“Hold me. I’m so cold,” Constance said, balling her fists in his shirt. Sam winced and lay still.

 

“You can’t kill me. I’m not unfaithful. I’ve never been,” he forced out. Dad had taught him and Dean that reasoning firmly with spirits could usually get them to leave you alone, but Sam seriously doubted that advice now. Constance pressed down onto his legs and he let out another sound of pain. She flickered down so her mouth was beside his ear. 

 

“You will be.”

 

Sam kicked his legs and groaned. Constance’s hands massaged his cheeks. She was right- she was cold. She sealed her lips over his, and Sam peeled his eyes open, desperately reaching for the keys in the ignition. She could kill him now. She pulled away and gazed at him, flickering again, but the flicker was different this time. For just a moment, she was a skeleton, and then she was gone. Sam let out a heavy breath. He breathed in, then screamed. A searing pain was tearing through his chest. He desperately pulled down the zipper of his jacket and looked down. 5 shallow, wide holes were dug into his flesh. As he looked down, a hand appeared, fingers appearing in each of the holes, and he threw his head back as the pain intensified. A grotesque, skeleton-like version of Constance straddled his lap, staring down at him. Sam screamed as her fingers dug further into his chest. His blood pounded in his ears.

 

Suddenly, a crash joined the pounding- the sound of four gunshots and glass shattering. Constance disappeared, then reappeared a moment later to be met with more gunshots. She disappeared once again. Sam let out something between a moan and a breath and grabbed at the steering wheel. “I’m takin’ you home,” he grunted. He pressed the accelerator to the floor and the car rolled towards the house. 

 

“Sam!” he heard but didn’t listen to Dean yell from behind him. He crashed through a rotted wooden fence, then slammed through the house’s empty doorway. He flew through the deteriorated living room, the headlights flashing off of stray bits of metal. Finally, he hit a wall of furniture and the car came to a stop.

 

“Sam?” he heard Dean yell.

 

“Here!” he replied. The crash had left him just fine, but there was quite a bit of splintered wood on the roof of the car..

 

“Are you okay?” Dean asked, leaning through the shattered passenger side window.

 

“I think,” he groaned. Now that the adrenaline in his system was fizzling out, the pain in his chest was worsening rapidly.

 

Dean pried the passenger door off of the car. “Can you move?”

 

“Yeah. Help me?” Sam replied. Dean grabbed his hand and pulled him up. Sam crawled over the seats and stood up, his breathing labored. Dean half- carried him, a hand around each of his shoulders. He leaned Sam back against the car. Sam looked up to see Constance standing not ten feet away from them, a picture frame in her hands. She looked down at it sorrowfully. Her eyes flicked back up to them, and Sam saw no sorrow, only anger and offense. Sam did his best to stare back at her with the same level of determination, but his chest still heaved with a combination of pain and frantically trying to catch his breath.

 

Constance threw the photograph onto the floor and walked around it without looking down.

 

Before Sam could move, a dresser from the other end of the room flew from its place. Sam groaned as it slammed into his stomach, combining with the pain in his chest to form a burning sensation throughout his entire torso. He cried out as he tried to push it away, throwing his head back. He finally gave up and leaned his head forward to find Constance standing in front of them once again.

 

A light fixture behind her flickered frantically, and the distinctive sound of clinking glass filled the room. Constance’s brows furrowed and she blinked. She turned to the stairs. It was now that Sam noticed the sound of running water and the streams of liquid running down the side of the staircase. Sam watched as Constance’s eyes followed the stream upwards before fixing on something behind the wall at the top of the stairs. She stepped back, her form floating slowly away from the stairs, and Sam bent to try and see what Constance still stared at.

 

“You’ve come home to us, Mommy,” a pair of small, whispery voices called from upstairs. Of course. It was Constance’s dead children.

 

All of a sudden, two children, the tops of their heads not even reaching Constance’s waist, appeared just behind her. She looked down at them, her brow knotted, her eyes wide, and her mouth open in pain and regret. The two children surged forward and wrapped their arms around their mother. She screamed, flickering between a skeleton and a spirit, before all three forms disappeared in a flash of blue flame. It then appeared that the family’s skin had been peeled off, each member all muscle and bone. Constance still screamed and snarled, until all three spirits fell to the ground and disappeared in another flash of blue that receded down to a puddle of water on the floor and almost totally absorbed into the carpet like water down a drain. 

 

Sam let out his breath, shaking his head in relief. He and Dean each braced two hands against the dresser pressing into their torsos and flipped it away and onto its front. Sam stepped gingerly, careful not to move his arms and cause a stab of pain in his chest, and walked to the small damp spot remaining on the floor.

 

“So this is where she drowned her kids,” Dean said in amazement. Sam nodded.

 

“That’s why she could never go home.” He smiled a little. “She was too scared to face them.” 

 

“You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy,” Dean said, slapping him on the shoulder.

 

Sam laughed, groaning a little bit because it hurt. “Yeah, wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?”

 

“Hey- saved your ass,” Dean replied, pointing at Sam. “I’ll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car,” Dean paused, leaning over and examining the front end of the Impala. “I’ll kill you,” he finished in perfect seriousness.

 

Sam looked back at him for a moment, then broke down into laughter, shaking his head. Dean just stared at him in disbelief before turning back to his car.

  
  
  
  


The Impala rattled down the street, one headlight out, a couple windows missing, and the roof dented. Luckily, the car’s radio had not sustained any damage.

 

Sam considered the coordinates in Dad’s journal, plastic ruler in his hands and a flashlight tucked beneath his chin. 35-111. He pinpointed the location on the map in his lap. “Okay, here’s where Dad went. It’s called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado.

 

Dean nodded. “Sounds charming. How far?”

 

Sam glanced at the map’s legend, then at the ruler in his hands. “About 600 miles,” he answered, taking the flashlight from under his chin and resting his head on his hand.

 

“Hey, if we shag ass we can make it by morning,” Dean said with a grin.

 

Sam looked at him. “Dean, um-” Dean looked back at him with wide eyes. He glanced at the road, then back at Sam.

 

“You’re not going.”

 

“The interview’s in, like, 10 hours. I gotta be there.”

 

Dean just closed his eyes in frustration and looked out the opposite window. He pressed his lips together and stared at the road. He nodded, and Sam could see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “Yeah,” he said thickly. “Yeah, whatever,” he said with a hesitant laugh. “I’ll take you home,” he said, his cheerful demeanor significantly doused. Sam looked at him, then back at the map. There was nothing he could do.

  
  
  
  


Dean pulled the Impala up in front of the apartment. Sam grabbed his bag, pushed the door open, and heaved himself out of the car without looking back at Dean. He pushed the door closed, then hesitantly crouched down to look through the window. He looked at Dean. Dean looked back at him and nodded to fill the silence. Sam gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?” he asked through the window.

 

“Yeah, alright,” Dean said.

 

Sam didn’t have much else to say, so he stood, gave the door of the Impala two fond taps, and walked towards the door. He heard the car start back up behind him.

 

“Sam!” he heard Dean yell suddenly. He hadn’t said Sammy. He had said  _ Sam _ . Sam turned around immediately. Dean had an arm draped across the back of the front seat. “You know, we made a hell of a team back there,” he said with a grin. 

 

Sam nodded and smiled a little back. “Yeah.”

 

Dean put both hands back on the steering wheel and shifted gears. He pulled the car away. Sam watched him go.

  
  
  
  


Sam twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. “Jess?” he called, depositing his key into his pocket. All of the lights in the apartment were turned off, and he couldn’t hear anything. “You home?” No response. Jess must have gone out. He stepped quietly through the bedroom door, taking a bite out of a granola bar. The bed was empty. Sam plopped his bag down on the floor and sat on the bed, looking out the window. He let out a breath of relief and fell back onto the bed, his eyes closed and his arms behind his head. He was home at last.

 

Sam yawned and settled into the duvet. He let out a heavy breath and let himself sink into sleep. As he slowly floated out of wakefulness, he was brought back harshly to reality by a drop- no, two drops- of liquid falling onto his face. He twitched, trying to shake it off, then opened his eyes.

 

His mouth stretched open, attempting to swallow enough air so that he wouldn’t pass out, his eyes widening as confirmation that he wasn’t dreaming, and there was Jess, on the ceiling, her hair spread across the ceiling and her mouth open, eyes black and empty, a red gash in her nightgown. Sam clambered backwards on the bed, away from her, away from  _ this _ .

 

“No!” he yelled.  _ Yes _ her vacant eyes seemed to say back to him.

 

Fire gushed from her sides, lighting her horrified face and tearing across the ceiling.

 

“Jess!” Sam yelled, sliding off the side of the bed and shielding his face with his arms. The flames devoured his girlfriend’s hair.

 

“Sam!” he heard a voice call from the doorway. He covered his face with his hands and curled his legs into his chest. 

 

“Sam!” he heard again.

 

“No!” Sam yelled. “No!” This was all he could say. No, this wasn’t real. No, this was a nightmare. No, his girlfriend wasn’t on the ceiling being burnt to-

 

Two arms wrapped around him. “We gotta get out!” someone said into his ear- Dean. Sam didn’t move. 

 

“Jess!” 

 

He was herded towards the door of the bedroom.

 

“Jess!” 

 

He caught one last glimpse of a fire-encased body.

 

“No!”

 

He was shoved out of the door.

  
  
  
  
Sam took a gun into his hands, slowly loading it. Dean joined him by the Impala. Sam looked at him, then back at the gun. He nodded and swallowed, shoving the gun back into the trunk- an agreement. “We’ve got work to do,” he said, and he slammed the trunk shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I'll be writing "Tall Tales" with Gabriel next in this series! I'm gonna take a break from this series for a couple of weeks to publish some other fics, but then I'll start back up! Leave feedback if you've got any, even the tiny, really specific stuff helps! (Have a good Fourth of July, to those of you in the US!)

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to send me headcanons and ideas!
> 
> I'm considering skipping around for this fic. What I am thinking about doing is beginning with the "Pilot", then skipping to 2x15, "Tall Tales", which has Gabriel in it, then skipping to 3x11, "Mystery Spot", where we also see Gabriel. After that, I would skip to the last episode of season 3 and then write the remaining episodes in order. I think its a bit illogical to write the episodes where Gabriel and Castiel have no role in what happens because those written episodes will practically be identical to the TV show, except for Sam and Dean having gay thoughts about some side characters. However, I feel that not writing every episode could ruin some of the story's continuity and lacks the fun of Sam and Dean crushing on minor characters. What do y'all think about me skipping around? Please let me know!
> 
> Also, having a beta (or betas!!!) for this fic would be awesome. I've never worked as or with a beta, so if you're experienced as a beta, you're gonna have to guide me through your process, If you have no experience as a beta, that's fine, too. I'll be looking for betas on future Destiel fics as well, so contact me if you're interested in betaing those!


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